Favorite Nights
by QuirkyBrunettes
Summary: These are Kate's favorite nights- when the air is balmy on their skin, bordering on humid with only their creaky fan to provide any relief; a movie playing on the old television that occasionally crackles with static; cuddled on their sun-bleached furniture. Richie x Kate


These are Kate's favorite nights- when the air is balmy on their skin, bordering on humid with only their creaky fan to provide any relief; a movie playing on the old television that occasionally crackles with static; cuddled on their sun-bleached furniture. It took them two years to get here. They had to go through hell before finding a place to call home, and those demons are still there. Lurking, haunting. They rage on the nights she wakes up, gasping for air, only to find him already awake. Where she gets nightmares, he doesn't let himself sleep. He sits up on their porch, inhaling smoke like his lungs need nicotine more than oxygen, staring blankly at the tremors in his hands. They walked through hell, alive but not unscathed. The first few months Kate is a mess. She can't eat or sleep or breathe without feeling claustrophobic, a prisoner in her own skin. She feels like she's dying all over again. She hates everything- the red hair framing her face like something garish and bloody, the look of relief and pity mingled in everyone's faces, the memory of dying naive and oblivious. Kate hates the world for breaking her and letting all her pieces heal _wrong._ He finds her in the bathroom one day, scissors gripped in bone white hands and an open bottle of hair dye staining the porcelain of the bathroom sink. The fallen locks bleed down the drain. Kate is left with an unsure shade of hair that lies unevenly at her collarbone, a testament of her shaking hands.

He is as bad as she is, but he doesn't show it. Kate's an open book. She wears her pain so close to her heart, it lives in tandem with her second-hand heartbeat. He shuts down, gets lost in a bottle. Nobody really knows what he went through in Xibalba, and he rarely talks about it. Shoves it down and pretends it doesn't exist. Spends weeks feeling sick from the sun and his newfound mortality. Breaks three pairs of glasses in anger before accepting he needs them again.

They meet under a common acquaintance: silence. He smokes while she counts constellations. Occasionally, she'll accept his offer and light one herself. She still doesn't inhale, and he still smiles when he watches her inexperienced drags. The first time either one of them really breaks the silence is when he asks her to tell him about the stars she's so fascinated by; he doesn't really care for astronomy, never has, but listening to her quiet voice read him the stories written in the skies makes him want to buy a telescope and steal the moon for her.

She brings him a sloppily frosted cupcake on his birthday with a candle she lights with the same lighter he opens up seventy times a day to mask his anxious fingers. They drive for hours until they reach a beach because Kate says they shouldn't spend all their time in the night. Not anymore. It's November when they go, but neither of them care about the weather as they stand ankle-high in the ocean as icy water nips their sensitive skin.

When he kisses her, she tastes like sea salt and lingering sadness, but the smile she wears for the rest of the day makes him think she won't be sad forever. They move into a small apartment. The air conditioning never works and the pastel paint is faded, but it's clean of all the memories and blood they have tried so hard to scrub from their skin. Two months after moving in he tells her _let's go home_ , and all at once they both realize they've carved out a safe place for themselves in this world without even realizing it. A home. Kate enrolls in a community college nearby, earning a degree in library sciences. She likes the feel of a heavy book in her hands, sturdy and real. It takes a year of prodding, but he joins her one morning with an unimpressed eye roll at her beaming expression. He tells her he's doesn't need classical education- he's a goddamn prodigy. She quizzes him for engineering tests with flashcards and kisses. Kate knows he's memorized all the information from the first time he heard it, but they both go along with it because she likes when he leans over open textbooks with a crooked smile and kisses her after he gets a particularly difficult question correct. It feels normal, and it's something she never thought she would have again.

But these are Kate's favorite nights. Her feet are in Richie's lap and he's absentmindedly tracing swirls on her bare legs.

"See, this is what I don't understand," he interrupts, "What's the whole deal with Tiffany's?"

Kate just rolls her eyes, muting the end credits. "You never like the movies I choose, Richard."

A smile pulls at his lips; she only uses his full name when she's annoyed, and he loves pushing her buttons. "That's because you pick shit movies. So far we've watched Grease- what was the point of all the singing, and then all of a sudden the car can just fucking fly at the end-"

"Richard."

"Plot consistency, Kate."

Kate huffs, removing her feet from his lap and crossing her arms. From the corner of her eye she can see the barely concealed smirk playing on her boyfriend's face, which he quickly morphs into a pout at her own irritated glare. "Don't be mad, Kate. I still love you, regardless of your evident lack of movie taste."

"Lucky me." She narrows her eyes ahead of her, refusing to look at him.

"Kate," he stretches out the syllable, moving closer to her on the couch. "You're supposed to say it back."

When she doesn't budge, he swiftly pulls her flat on her back so his own body is hovering above her on their couch. "Don't make me resort to tickling."

"You wouldn't."

"Don't you remember, Katie-Cakes, I'm despicable." His fingers find their target at the tender flesh of her sides, and Kate can't help the gasping laugh that overtakes her.

"Richie! Richie stop," she wheezes in between laughs, squirming away from him. When she meets his eyes, a grin splits his face. Kate reaches up to press the pad of her thumb into the indent of his familiar dimple. In a tender, teasing voice, "I guess I love you."

"That's my girl." He lowers his body down so it rests lightly on top of hers, always mindful not to hurt her, hands reaching for them hem of her shirt and captures her lips in a long, lazy kiss.

These are her favorite nights.


End file.
